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Vekta and Vulcan

Carbon road and time trial bikes for REAP: new dropouts, an integrated cockpit and all the composite tooling to build them.

Client
REAP Bikes
Role
Sole designer
Outcome
Launched at Rouleur Live, then a 100-unit production run
The lime green REAP Vulcan time trial bike with disc wheels, parked in a cobbled yard.

Challenge

The Vekta and Vulcan designs were outdated and needed reworking to take modern components, including a switch from rim to disc brakes. REAP also had no handlebar and stem system of its own for the bikes.

A blue REAP Vekta road bike with disc brakes, in front of a wooden wall.
Close-up of the integrated carbon handlebar and stem.
The integrated cockpit fitted to a white Vekta frame.

What I did

As the only designer on the project, I redesigned the fork and frame dropouts for disc brakes, and designed an integrated carbon handlebar and stem cockpit from scratch.

I created all the composite tooling, moulds and assembly jigs used to bond the bike together. Because everything was made in-house, I worked on the shop floor to see exactly how parts were laid up, and fed that back into the tooling design.

Pale blue tooling blocks and mould halves laid out on a workbench.
A row of machined aluminium mould parts on a workshop floor.
Close-up of a machined aluminium mould cavity.
An assembly jig with red toggle clamps holding a carbon part.
Two halves of an aluminium dropout mould on a bench.
A carbon fork leg resting in the workshop after moulding.

Tooling

I designed the complete composite tooling and mould set for the new Vekta parts, including the fork tooling, plus the assembly jigs used to bond the bike together: from production intent to repeatable alignment.

Outcome

The bike debuted at Rouleur Live in London. It was followed by a 100-unit production run funded through Crowdfunder.